The word is slowly getting out on the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) HITECH Workforce Development Program. Naturally I am interested in the word getting out, since Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is playing a major role in the program.
One of the most enjoyable interchanges so far has been with Anthony Guerra, Editor of the healthSystemCIO.com site. It began when I took exception to a posting of his wondering whether the ONC workforce funding might be "fast and loose spending of taxpayer money." I expressed my disagreement, which led him to interview me for his site. He prefaced the interview with a posting explaining its context. The full interview, which includes about 20 minutes of audio, provided me the opportunity to defend the program, at least what we at OHSU plan to do with our funding (described in an earlier posting in this blog).
While the OHSU press release has been replicated all over the Internet (as all press releases are), a few publications have actually written their own stories. One is Healthcare IT News.
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) is also working on a press release touting all of the HITECH funding that its members have received.
And of course, ONC has something to say itself about the workforce funding.
Not related to the workforce funding, I was also recently a HIMSS featured member in their HIMSS Insider e-newsletter.
Showing posts with label ohsu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ohsu. Show all posts
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Just What the President Ordered
Readers of this blog may be interested in a new press release today from OHSU. It can also be viewed at:
http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/about/news_events/news/justwhatthepresidentordered.cfm
June 30, 2009
Contact: Tim Kringen, 503 494-8231; kringent@ohsu.edu
JUST WHAT THE PRESIDENT ORDERED
OHSU biomedical informatics hires interns, trainees, and college faculty with federal stimulus funds
PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon Health & Science University has received funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and will do exactly what President Obama ordered: hire trainees and summer interns for its biomedical informatics training program. The new hires include undergraduate and graduate students as well as community college faculty.
The federal economic stimulus funding was received by the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) in OHSU’s School of Medicine. “This will do exactly what the President intended: provide jobs and help build expertise in health information technology,” said William Hersh, M.D., professor and chairman of DMICE. “This will be good for patients, who will see improvements in quality of care through the use of information technology. It will also be good for Oregon’s economy, as our state is positioned to be an industry leader in health IT due to the presence of established and emerging companies and the strength of the biomedical informatics program at OHSU. We’re very excited about this opportunity.”
Summer interns have already started arriving on campus and will work on a variety of projects under the mentorship of OHSU biomedical informatics faculty. A total of thirteen students are participating in the internship program, and come from a variety of colleges and universities, including the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Portland State University, Scripps College, and Northwestern University.
Brian Bakke is a sophomore at Portland State (PSU) studying computer science. “I’m interested in ways that technology can make health care more accessible for patients and simpler to understand.” Bakke is in the “3+2” joint biomedical informatics program between PSU and OHSU that allows students to receive both a B.A. in Computer Science and an M.S. in Biomedical Informatics during a coordinated, five-year course of study. “I think informatics is poised to make significant contributions to improving the American health care system in the coming years and I hope to be a part of that.”
Peter Ryabinin is a Portland native currently studying mathematics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Like many of his fellow summer interns at DMICE, he is interested in getting some work experience and finding out more about the field of biomedical informatics. “I enjoy applying mathematical ideas to the real world,” he said. “I think informatics is a way to do that and I want to see if it’s the right fit for me.”
All who participate in the program will take away valuable knowledge and skills they can pursue further study in the field (college interns), curriculum development in community colleges (faculty), and employment in the field (graduate student fellowships).
John Blackwood is a faculty member at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. He teaches in the Computer Information Systems degree program, a two-year sequence of classes designed to prepare students for employment as an entry-level network administrator, computer support person, Web designer, or computer programmer. “Informatics, at the associate degree level, is a relatively new employment opportunity and I want to educate myself so that I can help prepare my students to take advantage of more career options.” Blackwood and fellow DMICE summer hire Michael Talbert of Portland Community College are developing the curriculum for an associates degree in health informatics that they hope will be adopted by the state and available at all community colleges in Oregon. “The jobs are there. We just need to ensure that our students have the right mix of skills to be attractive to employers.”
The final group of trainees will begin arriving in the late summer and early fall. These will be graduate students pursuing Ph.D. degrees as well as postdoctoral fellows (with an M.D. or Ph.D.) who will be seeking advanced education in the field that will allow them to develop careers in this growing field. They will pursue a course of study that will culminate in a research project under the mentorship of an OHSU faculty member.
The stimulus funding comes to OHSU from the National Library of Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, the government agency devoted to biomedical research and training. OHSU will receive $184,810 for the summer internship program and $1.15 million for the fellowships. Further health information technology will be forthcoming in the future from other initiatives in the stimulus package as well as legislation sponsored by Oregon Congressman David Wu.
About OHSU
Oregon Health & Science University is the state's only health and research university, and Oregon's only academic health center. OHSU is Portland's largest employer and the fourth largest in Oregon (excluding government). OHSU's size contributes to its ability to provide many services and community support activities not found anywhere else in the state. It serves patients from every corner of the state, and is a conduit for learning for more than 3,400 students and trainees. OHSU is the source of more than 200 community outreach programs that bring health and education services to every county in the state.
http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/about/news_events/news/justwhatthepresidentordered.cfm
June 30, 2009
Contact: Tim Kringen, 503 494-8231; kringent@ohsu.edu
JUST WHAT THE PRESIDENT ORDERED
OHSU biomedical informatics hires interns, trainees, and college faculty with federal stimulus funds
PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon Health & Science University has received funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and will do exactly what President Obama ordered: hire trainees and summer interns for its biomedical informatics training program. The new hires include undergraduate and graduate students as well as community college faculty.
The federal economic stimulus funding was received by the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) in OHSU’s School of Medicine. “This will do exactly what the President intended: provide jobs and help build expertise in health information technology,” said William Hersh, M.D., professor and chairman of DMICE. “This will be good for patients, who will see improvements in quality of care through the use of information technology. It will also be good for Oregon’s economy, as our state is positioned to be an industry leader in health IT due to the presence of established and emerging companies and the strength of the biomedical informatics program at OHSU. We’re very excited about this opportunity.”
Summer interns have already started arriving on campus and will work on a variety of projects under the mentorship of OHSU biomedical informatics faculty. A total of thirteen students are participating in the internship program, and come from a variety of colleges and universities, including the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Portland State University, Scripps College, and Northwestern University.
Brian Bakke is a sophomore at Portland State (PSU) studying computer science. “I’m interested in ways that technology can make health care more accessible for patients and simpler to understand.” Bakke is in the “3+2” joint biomedical informatics program between PSU and OHSU that allows students to receive both a B.A. in Computer Science and an M.S. in Biomedical Informatics during a coordinated, five-year course of study. “I think informatics is poised to make significant contributions to improving the American health care system in the coming years and I hope to be a part of that.”
Peter Ryabinin is a Portland native currently studying mathematics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Like many of his fellow summer interns at DMICE, he is interested in getting some work experience and finding out more about the field of biomedical informatics. “I enjoy applying mathematical ideas to the real world,” he said. “I think informatics is a way to do that and I want to see if it’s the right fit for me.”
All who participate in the program will take away valuable knowledge and skills they can pursue further study in the field (college interns), curriculum development in community colleges (faculty), and employment in the field (graduate student fellowships).
John Blackwood is a faculty member at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. He teaches in the Computer Information Systems degree program, a two-year sequence of classes designed to prepare students for employment as an entry-level network administrator, computer support person, Web designer, or computer programmer. “Informatics, at the associate degree level, is a relatively new employment opportunity and I want to educate myself so that I can help prepare my students to take advantage of more career options.” Blackwood and fellow DMICE summer hire Michael Talbert of Portland Community College are developing the curriculum for an associates degree in health informatics that they hope will be adopted by the state and available at all community colleges in Oregon. “The jobs are there. We just need to ensure that our students have the right mix of skills to be attractive to employers.”
The final group of trainees will begin arriving in the late summer and early fall. These will be graduate students pursuing Ph.D. degrees as well as postdoctoral fellows (with an M.D. or Ph.D.) who will be seeking advanced education in the field that will allow them to develop careers in this growing field. They will pursue a course of study that will culminate in a research project under the mentorship of an OHSU faculty member.
The stimulus funding comes to OHSU from the National Library of Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, the government agency devoted to biomedical research and training. OHSU will receive $184,810 for the summer internship program and $1.15 million for the fellowships. Further health information technology will be forthcoming in the future from other initiatives in the stimulus package as well as legislation sponsored by Oregon Congressman David Wu.
About OHSU
Oregon Health & Science University is the state's only health and research university, and Oregon's only academic health center. OHSU is Portland's largest employer and the fourth largest in Oregon (excluding government). OHSU's size contributes to its ability to provide many services and community support activities not found anywhere else in the state. It serves patients from every corner of the state, and is a conduit for learning for more than 3,400 students and trainees. OHSU is the source of more than 200 community outreach programs that bring health and education services to every county in the state.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The Genesis of the 10x10 Course
The 10x10 ("ten by ten") program was launched in 2005 by the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). The genesis for the program came when then-President of AMIA, Dr. Charles Safran, called for at least one physician and one nurse in each of the 6000 hospitals in the US to have some training in medical informatics. At the same time, AMIA was looking to develop e-learning materials for training in medical informatics, but found that vendors were proposing unaffordable fees.
At that time, the biomedical informatics distance learning program at OHSU was mature and included an introductory course that I had been teaching on-line for nearly a decade. I proposed to AMIA that we re-package this course into a standalone course that included an in-person session at the end (not present in the OHSU course) that brought participants together for interaction and additional learning. Based on Dr. Safran's numbers and my knowledge of the scalable capacity of the distance learning course, I proposed that we name the program 10x10, embodying the aim of training 10,000 individuals in medical informatics by the year 2010.
The training would of course not be limited to physicians and nurses, nor would it be limited to US citizens. AMIA and OHSU negotiated a mutual non-exclusivity agreement, in which AMIA could accredit other educational institutions to offer 10x10 courses and OHSU would continue to own its intellectual property and use it for other initiatives besides 10x10.
The first cohort of 44 students completed the course in 2005. In addition to the "standard" offering of the course being offered to coincide with the in-person session at the end coinciding with an AMIA spring or fall meeting, a number of special offerings have been developed, tailored to specific audiences. These include:
By the end of 2008, a total of 582 people had completed the OHSU offering of the AMIA 10x10 course. While far short of the goal of 10,000, the capacity of course could handle many more people.
Students in 10x10 have come not only from the US, but also from many other countries, including Canada, Argentina, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Pakistan, Israel, and Thailand. One of the original students from Argentina, Dr. Paula Otero, translated the course into Spanish and has delivered it to 380 individuals across Latin America.
The course has also inspired federal legislation in the US, leading to the "10,000 Trained by 2010 Act," introduced by Rep. David Wu (D-OR). The bill was passed by the US House in the 110th Congress (2007-2008) but did not have a Senate sponsor. It has been introduced in the 111th Congress, and elements of it have been incorporated into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aka, the economic stimulus package.
A demo version of the introductory graduate course from which 10x10 is derived can be accessed at the URL:
http://sakai.ohsu.edu/xsl-portal/site/b6042e92-ea91-442a-af63-d3f882d2e88c
From this page, log in with the following:
Username: bmi_demo
Password: format
More information about 10x10 can be found on the AMIA web site at:
http://www.amia.org/10x10/
Information about the most current OHSU offering is at:
http://www.amia.org/10x10/partners/ohsu/
A number of papers have been written about the 10x10 program:
Hersh, W. and Williamson, J. (2007). Educating 10,000 informaticians by 2010: the AMIA 10×10 program. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 76: 377-382.
Feldman, S. and Hersh, W. (2008). Evaluating the AMIA-OHSU 10x10 program to train healthcare professionals in medical informatics. AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings, Washington, DC. American Medical Informatics Association. 182-186.
Otero, P., Hersh, W., et al. (2007). Translation, implementation and evaluation of a medical informatics distance learning course for Latin America. MEDINFO 2007 - Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress on Health (Medical) Informatics, Brisbane, Australia. IOS Press. CD-ROM P421.
Hersh, W. (2007). The full spectrum of biomedical informatics education at Oregon Health & Science University. Methods of Information in Medicine, 46: 80-83.
At that time, the biomedical informatics distance learning program at OHSU was mature and included an introductory course that I had been teaching on-line for nearly a decade. I proposed to AMIA that we re-package this course into a standalone course that included an in-person session at the end (not present in the OHSU course) that brought participants together for interaction and additional learning. Based on Dr. Safran's numbers and my knowledge of the scalable capacity of the distance learning course, I proposed that we name the program 10x10, embodying the aim of training 10,000 individuals in medical informatics by the year 2010.
The training would of course not be limited to physicians and nurses, nor would it be limited to US citizens. AMIA and OHSU negotiated a mutual non-exclusivity agreement, in which AMIA could accredit other educational institutions to offer 10x10 courses and OHSU would continue to own its intellectual property and use it for other initiatives besides 10x10.
The first cohort of 44 students completed the course in 2005. In addition to the "standard" offering of the course being offered to coincide with the in-person session at the end coinciding with an AMIA spring or fall meeting, a number of special offerings have been developed, tailored to specific audiences. These include:
- California Health Care Foundation (2006) - California physicians
- American College of Physicians (2007) - internal medicine physicians
- Scottsdale Institute (2007) - an organization of innovative health care systems
- Mayo Clinic (2007 and 2008) - senior nursing executives, embedded in a larger program centered around health care quality
- Society for Technology in Anesthesiology (2008) - anesthesiologists
- American College of Emergency Physicians (2008) - emergency medicine physicians
By the end of 2008, a total of 582 people had completed the OHSU offering of the AMIA 10x10 course. While far short of the goal of 10,000, the capacity of course could handle many more people.
Students in 10x10 have come not only from the US, but also from many other countries, including Canada, Argentina, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Pakistan, Israel, and Thailand. One of the original students from Argentina, Dr. Paula Otero, translated the course into Spanish and has delivered it to 380 individuals across Latin America.
The course has also inspired federal legislation in the US, leading to the "10,000 Trained by 2010 Act," introduced by Rep. David Wu (D-OR). The bill was passed by the US House in the 110th Congress (2007-2008) but did not have a Senate sponsor. It has been introduced in the 111th Congress, and elements of it have been incorporated into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aka, the economic stimulus package.
A demo version of the introductory graduate course from which 10x10 is derived can be accessed at the URL:
http://sakai.ohsu.edu/xsl-portal/site/b6042e92-ea91-442a-af63-d3f882d2e88c
From this page, log in with the following:
Username: bmi_demo
Password: format
More information about 10x10 can be found on the AMIA web site at:
http://www.amia.org/10x10/
Information about the most current OHSU offering is at:
http://www.amia.org/10x10/partners/ohsu/
A number of papers have been written about the 10x10 program:
Hersh, W. and Williamson, J. (2007). Educating 10,000 informaticians by 2010: the AMIA 10×10 program. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 76: 377-382.
Feldman, S. and Hersh, W. (2008). Evaluating the AMIA-OHSU 10x10 program to train healthcare professionals in medical informatics. AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings, Washington, DC. American Medical Informatics Association. 182-186.
Otero, P., Hersh, W., et al. (2007). Translation, implementation and evaluation of a medical informatics distance learning course for Latin America. MEDINFO 2007 - Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress on Health (Medical) Informatics, Brisbane, Australia. IOS Press. CD-ROM P421.
Hersh, W. (2007). The full spectrum of biomedical informatics education at Oregon Health & Science University. Methods of Information in Medicine, 46: 80-83.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
These are exciting times for Biomedical Informatics!
These are exciting times for the field of biomedical informatics. On the clinical side, the health care field is taking seriously the impact that information technology can have on health care quality, safety, and cost. Patients are increasingly empowered by increased access to information to maintain and improve their health. On the biomedical research side, advances in genomics and proteomics are revolutionizing approaches to health and disease. The world of biomedical research has fundamentally changed. Biological experiments now generate mass amounts of data, and researchers are required to interact with databases and other information resources. Biomedical informatics plays a key role in clinical and research areas. There is a great need both for informatics researchers to conceptualize and develop new applications and for informatics professionals to implement and disseminate them.
Biomedical informatics is the field devoted to improving human health, health care, and biomedical research through optimal use of information, usually with the aid of information technology (IT). As government, health care, and biomedical research leaders recognize its value, there are growing opportunities for careers in a diverse array of jobs, some of which are highly technical and others that focus on people and organizational issues insuring its most effective use.
President Barack Obama has made the use acceleration of health IT a key part of his “Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009,” stating, “To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized … It just won’t save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs – it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/economy/)
In biomedical research, the role in informatics in the discovery of new tests and treatments to improve health is equally acclaimed. The Web site of the National Institutes of Health, the US government agency that funds biomedical research, notes, “Modern biomedical scientists use computers and robots to separate molecules in solution, read genetic information, reveal the three-dimensional shapes of natural molecules like proteins, and take pictures of the brain in action. All of these techniques generate large amounts of data, and biology is changing fast into a science of information management. There is no way to manage these data by hand. What researchers need are computer programs and other tools to evaluate, combine, and visualize these data.” (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/bioinformatics/)
These statements, and the growing commitment by the government, health care institutions, and research funding agencies, show that the future is bright for the high-skill, high-paying jobs available in biomedical informatics. There is an extreme diversity of jobs available, such as:
Although students in the OHSU biomedical informatics program most commonly have backgrounds in computational/mathematical or life/health sciences, there are opportunities for virtually all types of students who are motivated to learn and contribute to working in and advancing the field. Students can pursue a tailored course of study commensurate with their interests and background while having access to cutting-edge research and/or experiences in local industry, health care settings, or biomedical research labs.
For more information, visit our Web site at:
http://www.ohsu.edu/dmice/
Or contact me:
William Hersh, MD
Professor and Chair
Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology
Oregon Health & Science University
hersh@ohsu.edu
www.billhersh.info
I look forward to your thought and comments on my postings!
Bill
Biomedical informatics is the field devoted to improving human health, health care, and biomedical research through optimal use of information, usually with the aid of information technology (IT). As government, health care, and biomedical research leaders recognize its value, there are growing opportunities for careers in a diverse array of jobs, some of which are highly technical and others that focus on people and organizational issues insuring its most effective use.
President Barack Obama has made the use acceleration of health IT a key part of his “Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009,” stating, “To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized … It just won’t save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs – it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/economy/)
In biomedical research, the role in informatics in the discovery of new tests and treatments to improve health is equally acclaimed. The Web site of the National Institutes of Health, the US government agency that funds biomedical research, notes, “Modern biomedical scientists use computers and robots to separate molecules in solution, read genetic information, reveal the three-dimensional shapes of natural molecules like proteins, and take pictures of the brain in action. All of these techniques generate large amounts of data, and biology is changing fast into a science of information management. There is no way to manage these data by hand. What researchers need are computer programs and other tools to evaluate, combine, and visualize these data.” (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/bioinformatics/)
These statements, and the growing commitment by the government, health care institutions, and research funding agencies, show that the future is bright for the high-skill, high-paying jobs available in biomedical informatics. There is an extreme diversity of jobs available, such as:
- Using electronic health records and other sources of data to measure and improve the quality of health care and to facilitate the conduct of biomedical research
- Serving as the bridge between the IT and clinical professionals in health care settings to insure IT systems are easy to use and provide the most useful data to clinicians, administrators, and researchers
- Analysis of genomic and clinical data to determine the role of genes in human health, to ascertain the risk of developing disease, and to predict the response to different treatments
- Deploying telemedicine and telehealth systems to bring medical expertise to the point of need
- Coordinating the information systems and data within them for state and local public health agencies
Although students in the OHSU biomedical informatics program most commonly have backgrounds in computational/mathematical or life/health sciences, there are opportunities for virtually all types of students who are motivated to learn and contribute to working in and advancing the field. Students can pursue a tailored course of study commensurate with their interests and background while having access to cutting-edge research and/or experiences in local industry, health care settings, or biomedical research labs.
For more information, visit our Web site at:
http://www.ohsu.edu/dmice/
Or contact me:
William Hersh, MD
Professor and Chair
Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology
Oregon Health & Science University
hersh@ohsu.edu
www.billhersh.info
I look forward to your thought and comments on my postings!
Bill
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